Draculas (60 page)

Paul

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I went in and changed Shanna's sudden embrace of gunnydom to a refusal to carry one. She was too upset with killing Marge.

I carried some of that over to Adam's final moments. He realizes none of the people these creatures came from chose to be this way, and so he forgives them before he blows them all to smithereens.

Paul

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Can't wait to catch up on this, guys. Working on another deadline. Sorry I've been out of the loop for a bit.

Blake is going to put this section together, then I'll go in and add Jenny scenes when needed, including the "say goodbye to Randall" scene and the "don't shoot Randall" scene, along with her death scene when the army drops the bomb on the hospital, assuming we're still going that route.

Joe

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nice, can't wait to read...Paul, I think you can probably dive into your last scene before I merge all the most recent stuff...I'll set it for you. Clayton and Randall are running up to the roof with Jenny and the kids, and as they pass one long corridor, they hear human screams. Clay says you go on ahead, I'll meet you up there. Clay runs down the corridor, finds 4 draculas have just about broken through the barricade into the maternity ward (enough so he'll be able to get in). He smokes them. Runs inside himself. this is what he sees...(where I'll end the section I'm currently writing):

Adam on the floor of the corridor near the nurses' station on the verge of being devoured by Oasis, another teen dracula is watching them. she just gave birth to a baby dracula, a huge hole in her stomach where the baby-dracula ate its way out.

Clayton kills those three draculas, saves Adam. Quick down beat, then Nurse Herrick dracula (nice out-of-nowhere scare) attacks and Clay wastes her. Then Clay leads and Adam wheels Stacie (still unconscious and mid-transfusion) out of the maternity ward, with his child (who was in the nursery) in his arm. sound good?

Blake

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Which floor is pediatrics?

Which floor is OB?

Paul

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I kind of like it, especially the idea the army has seen this before...what are you thinking? that this is the last we'll see of Shanna?

Blake

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OB - 3

Pediatrics - 2

Blake

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Not necessarily. I'm thinking some government agency knows about this virus, and has either been tracking it down or working with their own strain of the thing. They know they can't let it loose. That's why they're so quick to firebomb the building.

I don't think we have to explain more. If we decide on a sequel, it's a plot point we can expand or leave in the background. But it hints that this is bigger than we thought. Even Moorecook, who thinks he's in charge, might be a minor player on this stage.

Paul

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perfect.

I'll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I'll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.

Paul

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I'm all for it.

Blake

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"perfect. I'll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I'll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up."

So Jeff, just get Randall and Jenny and the kids heading up out of pediatrics, and they can run into Clayton.

Blake

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Will do!

Jeff

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Do you guys have scans of your signatures? I think it'd be a nice touch for the title page. If not, no worries.

Blake

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No, but how much trouble can it be to scan one?

Paul

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You're right. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Jeff

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I'm voting against signature scans.

While in Florida I saw a technology that allowed authors to actually sign ebooks. I expect it to be commonplace in a year or two. To have fake signatures is like those Nora Roberts autopen signed books--it doesn't add value, plus it ruins the potential for a real signature when the technology arrives.

Joe

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Joe, I'm enrolling you in OA -- overthinkers anonymous.

Paul

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I can't accept that enrollment until I think about it for a while.

Paul

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Okay so it's 2 in favor of signature scans, 2 opposed.

Now each side submits one representative, and those two fight to death.

The victor will get to make the call.

Blake

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Btw, Paul will be representing the pro-signature side in the death match.

Blake

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I'm starting to add everything into Draculas 2.4 tonight, with the exception of Paul's Clay and Adam 7.2 and Jeff's 9.0. Jeff, you've got a tiny scene to write to meet up your crew with Clayton, and Paul is just about done as well with having Clayton bust into the maternity ward. I'll add those final scenes when you guys finish. It's looking great.

Blake

September 16, 2010

DRACULAS 2.4 is up...We're over 63,000 words. I moved our old files into the old folder, and still kept Jeff's 9.0 and Paul's Clay, Adam, and Shanna 7.2. It took a little work to put everything together since certain characters cross each others' paths, but I'm shocked at how well it came together. The rhythm of it seems right on to me. Please go into 2.4 and make sure I haven't messed up any timelines or anything and that everyone digs the order of scenes.

Joe, maybe Maria wants to read the new stuff?

Here's how I think it all plays out:

1. Jeff links Randall up with Clay (and Paul's already written the scene when they meet up en route to the roof)...Jeff just extend from the last scene with Randall in 2.4...it's like a couple paragraphs at most I think.

2. Joe needs to look at the Randall/Jenny reunion final scene in 2.4 and decide if he wants to add a scene from Jenny's POV where she says she loves him, etc.

3. Clay goes into maternity ward per earlier email, kills everything, and leaves with my couple and their baby.

(I've made bolded notes in 2.4 where these scenes need to go...just use the search function and search for the asterisks in the manuscript*)

Let's brainstorm in the next day or so about the order of scenes and from whose POV they're written to wrap up the big finale.

Blake

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It's now 2.5. I gave it a quick read and corrected a few typos and corrected one of my movie quotes.

Blake -- I fear you've done too much damage to Adam for him to be good for anything. A fractured humerus makes that arm good for nothing, and we need him helping get Stacie upstairs and stacking chairs and spilling blood later on.

Jeff -- can we draw out Benny's death just a tad more? He's been such a great nemesis, I feel he needs little more drama - I'm talking maybe a dozen words or so. And maybe a drawn-out fart before he goes...I mean, making a clown a human whoopee cushion is kind of appropriate, yes?

BTW, how DO we get Stacie up to the roof?

WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I'M NOT SURE IF HE'S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.

Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she's surrounded, the army drops a bomb.

Shanna sees the explosion.

We cut away after that.

Back to Shanna later:
Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn't on it. She weeps.

Meets another survivor. Young guy. He's calm and a bit flirtatious.

How about he's dressed in scrubs? Looks vaguely familiar. (We need to set up that Mort's changing back to human. He goes to doctors lounge for clean clothes - we don't need to see him putting on scrubs)

Shanna's in isolation in the trailer. She watches copter rescue and the hospital's fiery demolition through the 1-inch glass window. The 4 kids are brought in. Dr. Driscoll hands her the baby ("I don't do babies.") Then a young guy shows up in scrubs. Says he's Dr. Michaels, a pediatrician. He'll take care of the squalling baby. When Driscoll returns, Shanna learns there is no Dr. Michaels.

DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?

I see Clay leaving Adam, rushing up to the roof and finding the stairwell clogged with draculas. Okay, he'll find another way out. But as he's passing the pediatrics floor, he's compelled to detour and find his beloved Taurus Raging Bull (which Randall told him he left behind). He finds it, and as he's cradling it, the hospital explodes around him. I like the contrast of him saving the human love of his life but dying while attempting to rescue a non-human love.

Paul

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Nice job, everyone.

I did a global search-and-replace to unify all the punctuation, and saved it as 2.6. I'll write the Jenny/Randall Reunion, then stick it in there.

I'll also throw it on my wife's Kindle and see if she digs it so far. So everyone please stay out of 2.6 for the time being while I work on it this morning. When I'm done I'll save it as 2.7.

If Blake and Jeff want to add to their scenes as Paul suggested, you guys need to do it one at a time and coordinate so you don't save different versions.

@Paul - I used the "my middle name is" joke with Clay during the infodump scene. I figure Clay's daddy gave him the middle name "Rambo", as a survivalist very well might. We could save that punch line until Clay does the "Careful" line at the end of your section, or we could kill it if you don't like it.

Joe

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Randall bit Benny...so he's already infected.

Paul

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Paul, Adam's injury concerned me as well, and started to really get on my nerves because I had to mention it constantly...I'll go back into 2.whatever it is later tonight, and dial that back to a bruise or something so he can be ready to help Clay...and re: getting Stacie up to the roof...it's just one flight, so I think maybe they'll have to struggle to carry her stretcher and the (blood-transfusion stand thingy - what do they call those?)

I like your thoughts on Clay's journey to the end. I'm for it.

Re: Moorecook...here's where we need some magic...I love what Joe did earlier, implying he was undergoing some change, but I don't want to telegraph that he's truly changing back to human...maybe we need an ambiguous Mort section, (Joe?) hinting that he's undergoing a reverse metamorphoses, but nothing anyone would suspect might lead him back to full on external humanity.

So after this young pediatric doctor has taken the baby, perhaps we have a scene in his POV (I know exactly how to do it), and only in the last paragraph do we realize this is Mort, heading back out into the world.

Blake

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works for me

Paul

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I was planning on doing the exact Mort/change scene you describe, Blake, right after the Jenny scene I'm working on.

Will be done in a bit, and add it to the manuscript.

Joe

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You could dunk a cross in a pool of urine while environmentalists burned the American flag and Randall would not have been more outraged than he was at the sight of Benny the Clown holding his precious chainsaw.

Awesome line, Jeff.

Joe

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Funny how Jeff and I both have adult male characters in love with their toys.

Paul

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And they're also able to provide their women with the best sex they've ever had in their lives!

Jeff

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In the dropbox. Added the Jenny scene and the Moorecook scene, extended the Randall saves Jenny scene for a bit more emotional impact, and made a few minor fixes.

Randall doesn't get bitten. He's going to change because he swallowed some of Benny. That'll start to happen once they're on the roof.

As for getting Shanna up the stairs, I'm thinking a piggy-back, which would be rough enough that she'd lose more blood than she's getting from the IV. Pretty extreme stuff, having a woman on your back who is sluicing blood down her legs. That could be how she dies...

Joe

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We know you mean Stacie -- I'll get them all to the roof (via Clay) and maybe Blake can take the switch to Adam's POV when he realizes she's gone.

Paul

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Exactly, but don't kill her quite yet...make her almost dead, but conscious. I want Stacie and Adam to have a nice last moment. I can't believe we're putting this nice couple through this.

Blake

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LOL. Yeah, Stacie.

This is funny, because in your new section you just called Shanna "Jenny."

I say we just call every character by the sexually ambiguous name "Chris" and let the readers sort it out...

Joe

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Draculas 2.8 is up wherein Adam's arm is no longer broken.

Blake

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Just put up Clay 5.2 (cont) which picks up where Clay 5.2 cut off.

It ends with Clay, Stacie, Adam, and Daniella on the stairs, heading for the roof. I'm handing off to Blake to pick up as they emerge onto the roof.

Paul

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Nice scenes, Paul.

Okay, here's where we're all at:

Jeff, you next scene is Randall going up the stairs, protecting the kids. They're walking up four flights with Clay, Stacie, et all. Randall will take the rear, keeping the draculas back. When he gets to the roof, he and Clay barricade the door. Then Randall loses one of his teeth.